Can FPGA 060 run more than 100 Mhz?

[Iggy]

Frankly, I'd take a 68030 with a full 68882.
Make that as fast as possible and who needs an '060 (unless you enjoy compatibility issues).

[Iggy]

Hello,
here are my thoughts about the subject.
First, I think we must have a partially micro-coded CPU instead of a fully hard-wired one.
I have done that with the J68 68000 core and I can achieve a higher clock rate (90 MHz on a Cyclone III, 300 MHz on a Stratix II).
The IPC is quite bad (90 MHz J68 is equivalent to a 30 MHz 68000) but this is mostly due to the instruction decoding not done in parallel and the lack of an address ALU for the EA computation.
Pipelining is good but create a lot of hazards in the pipeline.
Another approach is to create a barrel processor running at 200 MHz with 4 threads.
Then, we need a SMP Exec...
Regards,
Frederic

I've always wondered what a more capable FPGA could do, but the Stratix II is a little too high end for my wallet. Plus its got a lot of capabilities that seem wasted on a 68K emulation project (like the DSPs).
If you REALLY wanted to get extreme, how about Stratix III L?

[Iggy]

You can get preatty cheap Stratix I/II NIOS evaluation boards out of ebay.
I have 3 of them : one 1S40, one 2S60ES and one 2S60 ROHS. The last one I got only cost me around 40 bucks (regular price 6 years ago was $1000).
With a friend of mine, we did the cloning of the Atari Jaguar using this board.
Today, the Cyclone V must be as powerful as the Stratis II (ALM architecture with 6-input LUTs).

Price/performance wise, the Lattice ECP3 is not bad either. Plus, it has a DSP block with a dynamic ALU mode that can be very useful in CPU design.

Regards,
Frederic

Thanks, I have been focused on the Cyclone series as I was under the impression that it was the best value.
I'll have to check those out as a Stratix II evaluation board could be quite useful.

[Iggy]

@ Frederic,

I'm having trouble locating Stratix II based developments boards (and most commonly available Cyclone IV boards are crap).
Stratix II and Cyclone III chips are still quite available (at decent prices for the larger chips).
I like the performance benefits of what you have suggested, but it seems like Altera wants to push higher end apps into the Stratix III or higher (and I am not that impressed with the Cyclone V value vs performance ratio).

So, where did you find the dev. boards you have mentioned?

[Iggy]

Oh dear God, please tell me this isn't Gunnar von Boehm that you are referring to.

[Iggy]

@iggy
i am. but lets keep calm on that.

OK, I can give Gunnar the benefit of the doubt, but the word "vitriolic" comes to mind when I think about him.

[Iggy]

@psxphil, the thread may have 060 in its title, but none of the softcores are intended to be a copy of the 060, even the 050 of the natami was going to have additional instructions and registers.
The 060 instruction set is incompatible with almost all processors currently used in amigas, so any software written for the 060 may not run on most amigas, that is not being compatible.
Are you saying you want to freeze the evolution of the processor at the 060 level, with that kind of attitude we should still all be using 68000s.
The speed at which an FPGA softcore can run is limited, so to get greater performance, the softcore must use parallelism and simd instructions, this is incompatible with any amiga processor but it is worth the sacrifice if we want faster amigas, I know it is never going to be the fastest but we should try to get better speed or the platform will stagnate and die.

Well said sir!
Even Motorola didn't always push for the '060.
The '040 was still being promoted at the end of the 68K cycle.
I have PCI bridge devices that were designed primarily for that chip.
And the highest level of compatibility would be, as I mentioned before, an enhanced '030.
And why stop development?
Frederic's comment about conversion to a barrel processor is actually pretty good.
FPGAs have plenty of room for the extra registers needed for that.
And the software problems that result from other SMP solutions are lessened by this approach.

[Iggy]

Majsta is back to working on the Amiga with the help of the Apollo Team . He is planning to create a new Amiga accelerator with a much larger Altera fpga for the full Apollo. I'd rather not give any specifics yet as they may change.

That is really good news. I've been playing around with an Altera development board and I really like their products.
If you hunt for them, there are some spectacular buys available on larger Cyclone III chips.

FPGAs are also the only way I can speed up some 8 bits projects. There are faster 6502 and Z-80 compatible chips, but the fastest 6809 compatible I can find are the Hitachi 6309 3 MHz chips that I can overclock slightly.
With an FPGA 25-40MHz is easily attainable (high if I opt for something in the Stratix line).

And many FPGAs have built-in DSPs. Anyone following A-eon's new sound card know how useful that can be.

It makes me wonder if we could build a video decoder similar to the old Creative Labs DXR3 but specific to Amiga (Zorro II/III or video slot based).
We already have genlocks, but it would be nice to be able to play back files and DVDs directly.

[Iggy]

Perhaps if the process to produce the die was smaller/finer and the chip operated on less current higher operating speeds would be possible.
And 100 MHz is an overclocked speed.
Freescale flatly states there were never '60s rated higher than 75 MHz.
Further, they also insist that that "FE133" chip the Chinese are selling does not have a valid Motorola/Freescale ID number.

[Iggy]

The FE133 have no MMU and no FPU : anyway, I'm looking for one unit...

If anybody have a 68060FE133 for sale, please email me !

Hey everybody, this guy would like a relabeled EC 75MHz processor, and he is saying please.
Remember, I have an email from the manufacturer stating there is no such thing as an FE133.

[Iggy]

I'm sure the person who emailed couldn't find any evidence of the FE133.
 
That is rather irrelevant though.

And you are delusional, its simple, the only sources are Chinese and the Chinese are known to relabel ICs with fake markings.

They are fakes. Relabeled 75 MHz EC chips.

And as 75 MHz EC chips will overclock to the rates mention (but no where near 133) it ought to be obvious to anyone who isn't trying to kid themselves.